The firm took pole position in the contracts league rankings with a total work haul estimated at £3.18bn.

This was far ahead of second-placed ISG, which jumped to runner-up spot after netting seven projects in December alone worth an estimated total of £490m.

Mace returned to form ranking in third place over the year after failing to make the top 10 firms for the last two years.

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Morgan Sindall’s bid teams ended the year with the greatest number of new projects at 132 schemes, followed by Kier in second place with 118 successful bids.

The top 100 firms together bagged nearly £43bn of work – up 10% on last year.

It capped a year of big contract wins for many of the major players as order books continued to rebound from the slump in 2020 caused by the initial impact of Covid and Brexit uncertainty.

Many of the key orders came from the resurgent shed and industrial sector, a spate of film studio complexes, topped up with major entertainment and sports venue work.

The top 10 firms saw their share of total new orders secured by the 100 leading contractors edge up to 38% from 36% in the prior year, according to data collected by information specialist Barbour ABI.